Bobby Gillespie > Quotes

“I began to question the world and other people from a young age. I suppose that gave me a sense of emotional distance, a lack of trust in future friendships and relationships; I would assume a friendly and open manner, a cloak of safety. The price you pay is a fear of commitment and all the loneliness that entails. I was quietly angry, always have been. I still feel it, but I’m working on it. If you’re anything like me you have to recognise this well of poison that we carry, isolate the reason why we’re always ready to spring up like a cobra and bite at any time, any place, anyone. Unless you deal with it you will always repeat the same disastrous mistakes. You’ve got to confront your demons.”
― Bobby Gillespie, Tenement Kid

“Through my diseased eyes I'm sinful, sly, I can't stop stealing
I will pay the price of being a thief when I stop breathing”
― Bobby Gillespie

“Those painful childhood memories we bury, that some of us try and drown out with sex, drugs, alcohol, gambling, all the usual crutches and distractions. These childhood experiences are going to be really painful to engage with, no one wants anyone else to be exposed to their deepest, darkest, most shameful secrets, but unless these issues are talked about they can never be defeated, and you will never be at peace with yourself or anyone else. You have one day got to face that shit head-on and defeat it. Believe me.”
― Bobby Gillespie, Tenement Kid

“In those times no one really spoke about their feelings in the way in which they do nowadays. Today we have huge industries set up that profit from the idea that people suffer from a mental illness called ‘depression’; from the big pharma corporations to therapists, there is plenty of money to be made from emotional misery. The culture I grew up in discouraged people, especially boys, from ever discussing their ‘feelings’. You had to just accept whatever situation you were in and ‘get on with it’. I am a strong believer in that ethos of self-help and stoicism. Indeed, my father is a great example of that. In 1983 he was given six months to live by the doctor unless he gave up smoking and drinking. So he just went cold turkey and never told anyone. On his own, no shrinks or treatment centres for him; a man of the old school brought up the hard way.”
― Bobby Gillespie, Tenement Kid: Rough Trade Book of the Year

“Sister Rosa, Malcolm X and Dr. King
Showed us we got power, showed what changes we could bring
To change society you have gotta change the law
Their bodies may be gone but their spirits still live on”
― Bobby Gillespie

“When I was a teenager I started to think about how dedicated Dad was to the struggle for working-class rights. He had devoted his life to the Labour cause fighting inequality and that’s fucking great. I was proud of him. But what about women? He was out fighting the cause, and my mother was at home running the house. Where do women stand in the revolution? I’d seen Paine’s Rights of Man on his bookshelf. I wondered to myself, what about the rights of women?”
― Bobby Gillespie, Tenement Kid

“I kind of became a feminist from an early age, even though I wasn’t aware of the feminist movement in any way. I admired my mum a lot. In her own quiet way she was a fighter.”
― Bobby Gillespie, Tenement Kid

“One’s perception of time hasn’t been grounded by experience yet – time is of the essence and there never seems to be enough of it, and everything seems so important and has to be done now.”
― Bobby Gillespie, Tenement Kid: Rough Trade Book of the Year